In recent years, attention has been paid in the field of medical care to medical instrument guide systems which guide medical instruments such as a capsule endoscope and a catheter to a target position inside the body, and to drug delivery systems which delivers a drug to a target position inside the body. As such guide systems, Patent Documents 1 and 2 disclose magnetic guide systems which guide an object that contains magnetic material to a target position inside the body by work of a magnetic field generated by a magnetic field generator.
In the magnetic field generators disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2, a pair of magnetic field generation units connected by a connecting member is moved with a supporting member, whereby a magnetic field generated by the pair of magnetic field generation units is moved and a local maximum point of magnetic field intensity on a predetermined plane is moved. The object which contains magnetic material is drawn to the local maximum point of magnetic field intensity, so it is possible to move the object by moving the local maximum point of magnetic field intensity.
Patent Document 1: JP-A Hei 4-8343
Patent Document 2: JP-A 2005-103091